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Brownell, W. C. (William Crary), 1851-1928

"French Art Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture"

It _has_, in a word, more style.
I can find no exacter epithet, on the whole, for Dalou's large
distinction, and conscious yet sober freedom, than the word Venetian.
There is some subtle phrenotype that associates him with the great
colorists. His work is, in fact, full of color, if one may trench on the
jargon of the studios. It has the sumptuousness of Titian and Paul
Veronese. Its motives are cast in the same ample mould. Many of his
figures breathe the same air of high-born ease and well-being, of serene
and not too intellectual composure. There is an aristocratic tincture
even in his peasants--a kind of native distinction inseparable from his
touch. And in his women there is a certain gracious sweetness, a certain
exquisite and elusive refinement elsewhere caught only by Tintoretto,
but illustrated by Tintoretto with such penetrating intensity as to
leave perhaps the most nearly indelible impression that the sensitive
amateur carries away with him from Venice. The female figures in the
colossal group which should have been placed in the Place de la
Republique, but was relegated by official stupidity to the Place des
Nations, are examples of this patrician charm in carriage, in form, in
feature, in expression.


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